Always Valentines

The story goes that my parents had been together since they were thirteen years old.

Both born in 1916, I believe this card was exchanged in the late 1920's

 near the beginning of their relationship. 

My father always told me that "...it was the first valentine your mother gave me".

Since it was signed "From a Friend." and my mother's maiden name is signed

 in code at the bottom, it must have been given about 1929, or a maybe little earlier.

I first saw it as a young child while helping my mom fold and put clean laundry away,

nestled in the back of my Dad's underwear drawer. I noticed it propped up against the back of the drawer. The bright red caught my attention, and I ran out to my mom in the living room to ask about it. She told me the story and answered a few questions and then instructed me to put it back right where I found it...and be careful of it!

My mom passed away when I was about the age that they were when they began their journey together. I occasionally stopped to look at the card as I put laundry away through the years, and always made sure to treat it gently. As my dad must have done, as well, since it remained there for over thirty years until the day he left to join her. I sometimes found it lying at the bottom of the drawer under the clothes, at other times it was propped up against the back of the drawer with the front always facing out. I like to think that, at these times, he must have glanced at it thinking of her, and placed it carefully where it could be glimpsed more easily as he rummaged through his drawer.

I'm told that neither of my parents had ever really dated anyone else, though dad told me of two other admirers of my mom when they were young. But he assured me that nothing ever came of them, though the one guy was apparently quite persistent! Even in his elder years he still puffed up a little when he talked about their unwelcome attention toward her. He never remarried though I often teased him about the interest he drew from the many widows who frequented the local grocery store. In all those years I only ever heard him speak well of my mother and he wouldn't abide even the slightest allusion of disrespect toward her. I imagine their spirits together on this valentine day, at some warm place where they can row out to the middle of a lovely lake and watch the sunset alone together, just as I remember them doing in life. Their dream for retirement had been a cottage on a lake, and that's just how I picture them spending eternity together.         

Thoughts on Family History

I do not care only about placing a name, or date, in my family record in order to say that I have personally accomplished something. I want to understand what brought that entry into being and how my ancestors paved the way through their hardships and milestones - trying always to better the lives of their children, and in turn, improving conditions for the generations to come.

I want to understand beliefs and fears that were passed down, and dreams and failures through which valuable lessons were learned. I want to have a glimpse of the humor and stubborness that got them through each day, guaranteeing their survival and therefore my eventual existance.

I want to see, in them, a part of me. I want to know their inborn talents, what brought them joy, what sparked their interest. What brought a warmth to their hearts and a smile to their face. I want to understand what angered them, what brought sadness to their lives. I want to recognize, in my heritage, that which is still evident as common family traits, whether they be good or bad.

I want to know of the culture that influenced their reactions, the songs, the poetry, the superstitions, the celebrations that brought meaning to their often destitute lives. I want to have a vision of how my life might have been different if my family had never left their homeland and struck out for distant shores.

I want to be reunited with family members left behind, not only through documents of paper, but through emotions and half-imagined memories. I want to feel as if I've gotten to know them, though I will never have met them. I want to interact with those most like them, and through joining with their present day countrymen, I may one day be reunited with my own living kinsmen.

Grandma Hall's Button Cans

When I was a child, I can remember my Mom as she was mending some piece of clothing or making doll clothes or stuffed toys, saying "Go get a button can." or "Can you bring Grandma Hall's buttons to me?" I was usually happy to comply, I loved it when we got all the buttons out! I think my mom taught me to handle the button cans with a certain reverence, making it a special treat for me to sort through them and match them up. After all, Grandma Hall was the one who collected them and that made them special.


Thomas Anthony Hall and Myrtle Esler Brooks Hall, my Paternal Grandparent's marriage photo.

I never had the pleasure of meeting my Grandma Hall, she passed away six years before I was born. But I soon realized that there was a fierce loyalty to her from those who did know her. I heard only kind things about her and stories of her many caring and thoughtful ways.

The many buttons she had collected and saved over the years, sparked my imagination... "What garment did this button come from and who wore it? This button looks really old, I wonder if it could have come from her grandmother's button can? This one looks like it came from a boy's jacket - maybe it was on my Dad's clothes when he was a little kid?"

Sometimes I would ask permission to look at the buttons even if we didn't need one for a project. I would spread them out on the floor and arrange them by color, or design, or size. They seemed like gems to me. I thought of all the things I could do with them. "These green ones would make good cat eyes" or "Wouldn't these be pretty on a ruffled pink blouse?" They fired my creativity.

Through the years, my Mom added buttons to the collection - I still recognize some that were taken from the house dresses she always wore when I was young. I think even some buttons came from my other Grandma and possibly my aunts or sister-in-laws contributed one or two as well. And I've added some myself and continue to do so.




I still look through them once in a while, as I did today. I actually know them well enough to often pick out which buttons I need before I even get the button cans out. But there are many special ones that are just for looking ... and remembering ... and imagining ...

Father's Favorite Flowers

My Dad's favorite wildflower must have been Phlox. I remember him showing me the plant when I was young, making sure I took a whiff of the spicy scented flowers and took notice of the color ranges in the bloom throughout the season. When he spotted them along the road as we drove by he would ask "What kind of flowers are they?" And I would reply proudly with "Phlox!"Now I know that they are specifically called Blue Phlox, Woodland Phlox, or Wild Sweet William. The scent IS wonderful. I can remember Dad always saying "I smell Phlox" as we rode in the car. Or if we were walking he would often hunt them down, by following his nose. He sometimes brought bouquets of them home with him, to be placed in a vase. Though they didn't last long after being cut, it was well worth it, since they brought so much pleasure for that short time before they wilted away.

By Memorial Day the Phlox are just coming into full bloom in Northern Pennsylvania, and each year as we made the trip to visit family cemetery plots in Blossburg Pa. it was his habit to walk across the road to see the flowering Phlox growing along the creek before we left to return to New York, where it would usually be another week before they opened their fragrant petals.
I have many times tried to transplant the wild variety in my flower gardens at home, and finally did succeed in having the perennial reappear the next year and even spread a little. I much prefer the wild variety to the garden species, but that may be just because it will forever remind me of Dad.

Grandpa Kyler's Cigarette Dispenser

This small wooden wall plaque, with a box built into it was in my parent's basement when I was a young child. It had an old coat of pink paint, and hung on a nail that just happened to be there . . . though I seem to remember it stuffed with receipts, or small paper items at one time. I had asked about it every so often and was told by my Parents that my Grandpa Kyler had made it back when he was a foreman at a remote (Pennsylvania?) logging camp and that he filled it each day with rolled cigarettes for the men to enjoy when they returned in the evening from their hard labor. When I was older, I asked my Dad if I could strip the paint off of it to it's original wood and then varnish it so we could hang it up and use it. It had many layers of tan, white and green paint underneath the pink color. When I finally got down to the last layer, I noticed that there was writing showing through in spots. I soon found that on the front of his cigarette dispenser Grandpa had written in permanent ink "Take One". It now hangs in my kitchen offering up another often desired item . . . I keep it filled with decorative packages of toothpicks.

Albert William Kyler Sr. was really my 'Step' Grandpa, since my Grandma Derr had remarried after being widowed at a young age. Since my Mother was just a baby when Grandpa Derr died, I never met my biological Grandfather. Grandpa Kyler was the only Grandpa I knew on my Mom's side. To me, he was Grandpa and I loved him. And the story of the plaque sounded just like something he would do. I remember him as a quiet, kind man who told me stories and sat outside with me and talked while we whittled. He would say "See that stick over there? Get it for me, Honey." When I handed it to him he would break it in half and give me one part, then he would reach in his pocket and bring out two pocket knives. His, and another smaller one for me to use. I don't remember ever actually carving anything, we just whittled while we relaxed and talked quietly. Sometimes we whittled the whole stick away and had to find another one to work on. Whenever we went outside to sit, I would just be waiting for him to ask me to find a stick. After it had become a ritual with us, I sometimes asked "Grandpa, you want me to hunt for a stick?" or "You wanna whittle, Grandpa?" He would laugh and say "I think I just might have our pocket knives." And it seems he always did have them when I asked. But he always put "my" knife back in his pocket when we tired of using them, because I was too young to have a knife of my own.

I still sometimes wonder what ever happened to that little knife...

Thomas Harold Derr's Calling Card

A calling card was tucked into the poetry book that belonged to my Grandfather Thomas Harold Derr. On it his name is displayed in a flourish of cursive writing which could only be considered calligraphy. I doubt that he wrote with such elegance in his normal daily writings, or perhaps he ordered calling cards like we do business cards. But since he was known to be artistically inclined, I choose to believe that it was his hand that wrote his signature so beautifully using a nibbed dip, or fountain, pen.

I found the information listed below interesting, though I doubt that there were servants available to receive and deliver a calling card in the residences of either of my ancestors. I can imagine Harold, as he was commonly referred to, visiting Mabel and presenting his card to my future Grandmother, or her family, while he courted her prior to their marriage in 1915. I expect that they were made to follow proper etiquette since she was apparently brought up in a religious English household and he was of Pennsylvania Dutch stock. It is said that the practice continued to survive until about 1920. It seems a romantic tradition, but served a useful purpose for making connections in business and society and were carrried by men and women alike. 

Mabel Olive Stanton

Calling Card Etiquette, 18-19th centuries

"Calling" was a somewhat ritualized version of the fine old custom of "visiting". There were certain fixed rules laid down by society which might apply to a resident in a small town with the same force as in a large city.

• On making a first call you must have a card for each lady of the household.

• On making a call leave your card to the servant. You will be allowed to see the hostess only after she examines your card.

• On the hall table in every house, there should be a small silver, or other card tray, a pad and a pencil.

• When the door-bell rings, the servant on duty should have the card tray ready to present, on the palm of the left hand.

• A gentleman should carry them loose in a convenient pocket; but a lady may use a card case.

• If your card receives no acknowledgment, you must conclude that for some reasons they do not wish to extend their acquaintance.

• Do not examine the cards in the card-basket. You have no right to investigate as to who calls on a lady.

• A young lady can have a card of her own after having been in society a year.

• American gentleman should never fold the corner of his card, despite of the temporary fashion. Some European gentlemen, on the contrary, fold the upper right corner to indicate that they've delivered it themselves (the servant should never hand his master's card folded).

• Fold the card in the middle if you wish to indicate that the call is on several, or all of the members of the family.

Signs on a visiting card

The initial letters you can meet on personal cards stand for the French words:

• p. f. - congratulations (pour féliciter)

• p. r. - expressing one's thanks (pour remercier) - even if one is presented with flowers

• p. c. - mourning expression (pour condoléance)

• p. f. N. A. - Happy New Year (pour feliciter Nouvel An)

• p. p. c. - meaning to take leave (pour prendre congé)

• p. p. - if you want to be introduced to anybody, send your visiting card (pour présenter)

http://www.belightsoft.com/products/composer/historyetiquette.php

Thomas Harold Derr

If you would like to learn more about the tradition of Calling Cards, you may want to visit

The Gentleman's Guide to the Calling Card ~ The Art of Manliness
Especially since the use of the Calling Card is now said to be making a comeback.

Great Grandpa Brooks' Metal Handled Hatchet

My Dad kept this old hatchet his whole life, it was given to him by his Grandpa Brooks when he was just a young boy. He told me the short story many times, and always reminded me "It's the metal handle hatchet in the basement with my initials marked on it." While I was in college in the 1980's I took several Geology classes. One was a summer field class where we would go rock hounding every weekend. I couldn't wait for the hiking, climbing and digging for rock specimens and fossils. One day I was showing Dad the required equipment for the class, which included a hard hat, rock hammer and testing supplies like hydrochloric acid. I had to run to the store and left my backpack leaning against the chair where I had been sitting. When I got back, there were four items with my pack. As I picked them up, he said "I thought you might be able to use those two rock hammers for your Geology stuff. The smaller one was that one I had still hanging around, just needed a new handle. And the other one is the one that came from Grandpa Hall's, remember? It was just the head - didn't have a handle on it..." He had put new wooden handles on both of them for me. I now had three different sized rock hammers for my geology digs and an old rock chisel he had included as well.

 The other item really surprised me, it was the metal handled hatchet. I asked "Isn't this your Grandpa Brooks' hatchet?" " Yep", he said, "figured you might as well have that too, since I always kept them together down there." That soon had a place on the wall, next to my Grandpa Hall's Cobbler set. But the mining tools went straight into my rock pack. and that's where they stay. And they've gotten quite a bit of use and still do every so often. Those two older style hammers were the smaller sized ones that the miners carried on their belts in the coal mines, my Grandpa Hall worked in the coal mines all his life, and my Dad also had a very short stint in the mines as a young man. Although Great Grandpa Brooks, my Dad's Maternal Grandfather, had worked as a Carpenter for most of his life.       

James George Brooks

Thomas James Hall

James G. Brooks was born in 1868, so that made him about 48 when my Dad was born in 1916. It must have been in the early 1920's when he gave his grandson the metal handled hatchet. Dad's story included the description of his Grandpa helping him stamp his initials into the metal of the head of the hatchet. It wasn't new when it was given to him, it was one that his grandfather had already had and was used. Together they punched the letter "T' for Thomas one one side, and the letter "H" on the other, for Hall.

My Dad's full name was Thomas James Hall, Thomas for his father, and his middle name of James after his Grandpa Brooks. He seemed proud of that and was sure to point out who his namesakes were.